


The Other Shadow

by DiYunho



Category: DCU, Joker - Fandom, Suicide Squad (2016), The Joker - Fandom, The Joker dcu - Fandom, joker DCU
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Comfort/Angst, Death, Denial of Feelings, Drama, Drama & Romance, Emotional, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Emotions, F/M, Falling In Love, Fatal Injury, Feelings, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gotham City - Freeform, Heavy Angst, Insanity, Joker - Freeform, Jonny Frost - Freeform, Love, Love Confessions, Major Character Injury, Promises, Psychological Drama, Regret, Short, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts, The Joker - Freeform, The Joker Jared Leto, The Joker Suicide Squad, The Joker dcu, Thunder and Lightning, Thunderstorms, Tragedy, True Love, Villains, Villanelle, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, beyond grave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 09:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18333575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiYunho/pseuds/DiYunho
Summary: Before you died, you promised not to leave him. Yet you did and The Joker was left behind with the demons he can’t keep at bay any longer. Little he knows that bound by his grief and your dying promise, you are still here; you never left.





	The Other Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> You can also follow me on Tumblr and Wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho.

“She won’t stop bleeding!”, J pants, pressing on the towels covering your numerous gunshot wounds. “Frost, where’s the goddamned doctor?!” he shouts, angered.

“On his way, sir!” Jonny reports, awaiting orders.

“Here, Pumpkin, press here!” he tries to keep your hand on your abdomen injuries but your arm slides back down to the side of your body. “Frost! More towels!” J barks while you stare at the ceiling, struggling to breathe. You got shot twice in the chest and three times in the abdomen; there is also a lesion on your left leg the Joker didn’t even notice due to all the blood you’re covered with.

“Hey Y/N, look at me!” he turns your face towards him and you can barely hear the words.

“Here, sir!” Frost hands over the fresh towels; J tosses the bloody ones on the ground and places the new ones on your wounds.

Suddenly, blood gushes from your mouth, dripping down your chin, then behind your neck, forming a pool of sticky liquid by your head.

“Shit! Hey, hey, look at me! You’re fine! Do you hear me? The doctor is coming, you’re fine,” J mumbles, aware your situation is critical.

“J…” you faintly whisper and slowly lift your hand. He immediately takes it and almost loses his grip: so slippery from all the blood. Frost bites his lips, bracing for the imminent storm: he knows you’re behind help at this point.

“You can’t leave me, do you hear me? You’re not allowed to!” he screams and you choke in your own blood, squeezing his hand with all the strength you have left.

“J…” you manage to utter when the cough stops. The new towels are already drenched, but The Joker doesn’t ask for new ones anymore.

“Don’t leave me…” he presses his forehead against yours, hoping for a miracle he knows it won’t come. “Promise you’re not leaving me…” he begs, hopeless for once.

“I…w-won’t…I…s-swear…I swear…” you chew on your words, unable to focus. You take one more deep breath, then exhale, your eyelids closing, still trying to look at him.

The Joker gasps, then turns towards Frost with madness in his eyes, slowly descending in the abyss he’s powerless to keep at bay:

“Get out!!!! Turn off the lights and get out!!!!”

Jonny takes a few steps back without saying anything, shocked on how the night’s events turned out to be: you were just on a heist when the cops arrived sooner than expected and got caught in the crossfire while following your boyfriend towards the exit. A simple mission that turned into an unexpected catastrophe.

The lights are turned off, only the dim light from the lamp by the table you’re on illuminates the darkness inside the warehouse. J wipes his face with his hands, not realizing he’s smearing even more blood all over; his shrieking breath is the only sound echoing in the huge chamber. He takes off his purple coat, stained with your blood and covers you with it, squishing himself on the table by you.

“You…you promised…You fucking promised, Princess…” he keeps on repeating over and over, holding your lifeless body in his arms. Any sense of closeness and intimacy that was so hard for him to achieve is gone forever; it’s the only things J comprehends for the moment.

He stays by you all night, incapable to move or to think. Nothing but numbness and pain.

When the morning comes, Frost sneaks in to find his boss on the floor, holding on to his purple coat.

“Mister J…” Jonny makes his presence known since The Joker seems to be in a trance.

“Take her away…” he growls, resting his head on his knees.

“Where should we bury her, sir?” Frost tests the water, not knowing what to expect.

“I don’t care…I don’t want to know…”

Jonny wraps you up in a sheet and begins walking towards the exit.

“Wait!” J stops him and rushes over, taking out one of his diamond earrings and pins it to your shirt. “These…these are her favorites…a gift from my girl… This way she’ll have one and I’ll have the other…GO!!” he pushes Frost away, not wanting to prolong the agony.

Once the heavy door closes behind Jonny, J collapses on his knees, exhausted.

“You fucking promised, Princess…”

******************

Week after week passes by and he can’t let go. Trapped inside the penthouse, J doesn’t want to speak or see anybody. How those voices torment him now that there is no more you to distract from the chaos! All his demons bite and scratch, prying on his mind, making him descend into insanity even more with each passing day.

Sometimes he falls asleep but he can never rest: the nightmares wake him up and the demons take over: evil, despicable whispers that only he can hear.

But you can hear them also: bound by his grief and your dying promise, you are still here; you never left. You wish you could comfort him somehow, you wish you could find a way to let him know his girl is still by his side. You tried and tried and so far no luck. 

Tonight is very bad; he is so restless he didn’t sleep in 2 days. The purple coat soiled with you dried blood is always on your side of the bed because The Joker likes to pretend you’re there. What worries you the most is the loaded gun he won’t put down, not even for a second. You know he is thinking about it, he’s been contemplating it for a while; you can hear his thoughts but he can’t hear you: he can’t distinguish your voice from all the others in his troubled mind.

He puts the pistol to his temple, then puts it back down, fighting with himself. You are so desperate you shout as loud as you can: “SHUUUT… UUUUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Silence. Unexpected silence. No more voices and it makes him jump, realizing the much needed quietness.

“Don’t do it!” he only hears one familiar voice resonating in his mind, loud and clear. J look right and left, stunned. “Don’t do it, it’s me! I’m here!”

He gets on his knees, sniffling, not understanding what is happening.

“Baby, it’s me! I’m here!”

“…Pumpkin?” he asks, convinced he finally completely lost it. No answer. “Shit…” he sighs, rubbing his eyes. “I’m so tired…” and he collapses on the pillow and drops the gun on the floor, convinced he’s hallucinating.

“Go to sleep…rest…” the soothing voice urges; it feels so good for some reason. His body relaxes and The Joker falls into a deep daze, much needed after all that happened.

Now that you finally made him susceptible to your presence, you are determined to continue until he is fully aware you are still with him.

****************

The next day, J wants to actually visit one of the clubs after his self-inflicted seclusion. He slept for hours; uninterrupted relaxation and for the first time in months, The Joker is out and about. He still desires solitude so he doesn’t want anybody else with him in the VIP room. One of the waitresses comes in with his drink, intensely glaring at him. She places the glass full of whiskey on the small table by his couch; he doesn’t even bother to look her way.

The woman unexpectedly straddles his lap and J pushes her away, displeased, contemplating blowing her brains out:

“What the hell?! Get lost! I didn’t allow you to touch me, did I?!”

The woman disregards the warning and wraps her arms around his neck, hugging him tight: 

“It’s me, baby, I’m here,” she mutters in his ear, caressing the green hair.

J’s heart starts beating out of his chest; he doesn’t know why but doesn’t argue when she takes his arms and places them around her waist.

“I never left you, I’m still here…” she continues and begins sobbing on his shoulder.

“…Princess?” The Joker groans, sensing the pain of a thousand daggers in his chest. The woman doesn’t look or sounds like his dead girlfriend, but it feels and smells like her: that sweet, fruity perfume he loved so much.

“I don’t know how long I can stay in this body…” and she cries harder when his fingers dig in her back, suffocating her with his embrace, “… but I wanted you to know I kept my promise…I’ll never leave you… When you go outside, look at your shadow and you’ll have your proof…”

The woman suddenly loses consciousness and lets go, her body limp on his knees.

J just sits there, barely controlling the emotions he can’t even grasp.

After about 10 minutes, he calls out to Jonny:

“ Frost!”

“Yes, sir?” he parts the colorful beads and steps inside.

“Take her out of here!” The Joker hands over the woman and Frost thinks that his boss probably knocked her out for some reason or another. Not that he needs a reason anyway.

After Frost departs, J gets up and storms out to the south wing of the club where there is a small terrace on the top floor reserved only for him. Since it’s summertime, there is still daylight at 9pm. He walks on the patio, carefully watching the wooden deck for his shadow. He holds his breath when he realizes what he’s looking at: aside from his shadow, there is another one next to his body. It could be that is a strange reflection due to the sunset, but it definitely has a different shape and every time he moves, the other shadow changes position in a weird manner.

“Holy…” he covers his mouth, petrified, backing out a bit. “Baby Doll…is…is…that you…?” he stutters, intrigued and his eyes get big when the other shadow tilts its head to the left in agreement.

“Oh…my…God…” The Joker gets on his knees, touching your figure. “You’re really here? I’m…I’m not seeing things?”

The other shadow leans its head to the right and the Joker has tears streaming down his face, not being able to control himself.

“Pumpkin…Daddy missed you…”

******************

The lightning storm started after J retreated back to the penthouse. He turned off all the lights and opened the windows and the glass door leading to the balcony. It was your favorite thing to watch with him: the stormy skies and bolts brightening the menacing clouds, followed by the deafening sound of thunder.

The Joker takes a sit on the floor, admiring the show, when he accidentally glimpses at the full size mirror that you kept on the front corner of the living room. It’s till there and he freezes when he notices the detail: every time the lightning strikes and the brightness fills out the chamber, your ethereal, translucent being is cuddled by him, resting its head on his shoulder and holding on to his arm. Just like a light that gets switched on and off, it keeps on appearing in the mirror and even if you’re transparent, J can tell without a doubt that it is indeed you. He can sense it with every fiber of his soul and he can again smell your perfume.

When he turns his head to look to his left where you’re supposed to be, nothing there but thin air; he can only see you in the mirror.

Something drops from the ceiling in front of him: a small, shiny object that he pics up and the lightning reveals what he gave up a while ago: one of his two diamond earrings you were buried with.

The Joker widely smiles, placing the missing treasure back in his ear, talking to your image in the mirror:

“Aahhh, together at last, Princess. Now I have both of them again.”


End file.
